Children of the French Empire:
Miscegenation and Colonial Society in French West Africa 1895-1960

Owen White

Children of the French Empire is obviously rather specialised — it
is based on a PhD thesis — but it connects with the broader history of
colonialism. White opens with a chapter on miscegenation in French West
Africa, touching on earlier Portuguese contacts and then looking at the
theory and practice of French colonial administration. Though policies
and practices varied considerably, the French tended to be pragmatic about
temporary marriages with locals (more so than the British and Italians)
and métissage persisted even as racial and social divides hardened.

White's focus, however, is not on miscegenation itself but on its
results, on the thousands of métis born of mixed-race relationships.
These were mostly abandoned by their fathers, but were the subject of
special attention by colonial administrations, which set up institutions
for them, or allowed and encouraged missionaries to do so (before
Third Republic anti-clericalism). The goals of intervention varied
considerably, as did implementations: in some cases children were taken
away from their mothers, distinctions between métis and Black African
children were not always maintained, conditions in institutions ranged
from the appalling upwards, and of course boys were treated differently
to girls. White looks in detail at two institutions and at the subsequent
employment of their graduates — métis were pushed towards careers as
"petty bourgeois functionaries" such as auxiliary workers in health
and education.

White then looks at the place of miscegenation in nineteenth
century racial theories, from Gobineau onwards, and the extent to
which metropolitan theories, many of them obviously lacking contact
with reality, were accepted or opposed by those in the colonies with
first-hand experience. He also describes attempts to clarify the legal
status of métis. Pressure to give them French citizenship increased with
a 1910 change to French paternity law and with the First World War, but
a 1930 decree allowed authorities to keep tight control on who was given
citizenship and fewer than four hundred métis qualified before 1944.
A final chapter considers the search by métis for a social identity,
looking at the creation of métis organisations and the histories of a
few individuals.

Note: Children of the French Empire happens to be in the middle of
my sister Jennifer's research field, but she's not responsible for
anything in this review.